KYLE HUTTON insists Rangers are ready to begin a bright new chapter now the threat of having their history rewritten has been lifted.

The Gers midfielder believes the mood around his club has been buoyant after it was ruled they shouldn’t be stripped of SPL titles on the back of payment methods to players from 2000-2011.

Ibrox bounced to a positive beat on Saturday but the feelgood factor emanating from the stands couldn’t be translated on to the pitch in an unconvincing win over East Stirling.

There is much work to be done on the park as a 3-1 win over the minnows disguised a multitude of sins.

But Hutton is convinced the clouds that have hung over Ibrox are starting to lift. He said: “I’d have been devastated if we’d been stripped of titles and all that history had been taken away from us. It would have been really disappointing.

“But everyone was upbeat at Murray Park on Friday and the verdict has come at the right time. It’s given us a boost just as we start to go on the run of games which could win the title. Everything is sorted now and everyone can just concentrate on the football and getting the victories we need.

“Hopefully we can get the wins we need to wrap the league up.

“It was a massive lift for the club and the fans and you could see the atmosphere on Saturday. That put some added pressure on us to go out and give them something to enjoy on the pitch.”

But when they went a goal down to the Shire, Hutton admits that was as bad as it’s been at home this season.

He said: “I’d say the first half was the poorest 45 minutes of the season from us at Ibrox. It’s all about taking our chances because when we do that it calms everybody down.

“Going one down piled even more pressure on us but we came out in the second half, scored three goals and put on a display.

“We always seem to make it hard for ourselves. We create chances but don’t take them and we never seem to get that early goal.

“Consequently, as the game goes on we get more and more nervous but thankfully we did the business in the second half.”

A double from Andy Little and a strike from returning skipper Lee McCulloch spared the blushes but Hutton revealed a half-time bollocking and tactical tinkering turned the game.

He said: “The gaffer made it clear we had to raise it and we switched things round, with David Templeton playing in the hole, and that changed the game. The gaffer and Kenny McDowall came in at half-time and had a real go.

“We knew ourselves we’d been poor and that we had to improve in the second half. Scoring early was the key. We knew we had to raise the tempo because we had been sloppy first half.”

A dismal draw at Stirling last midweek was another example of a side that has failed to deliver an emphatic example of their supposed superiority at this level.

It was Shire’s turn to expose the failings of Ally McCoist’s team as there appears little creative structure to their play, with a long punt up to Lee McCulloch being the preferred route on Saturday.

On a day tailored for getting the ball down on a surface geared for slick and incisive play it was another fragmented and wasteful display that only improved when their opponents started running on empty.

As chances were missed and the minnows’ confidence grew the murmurings of discontent became a crescendo of boos as the teams headed into the break.

Hutton is the first to admit that all too often this season Rangers have endured a habit of making life difficult for themselves.

But he said: “Being close to claiming the title hasn’t made us more nervous. We know what we have to do and we’re just taking each game as it comes.

“We just concentrate on creating chances and scoring early on would really make things easy for us.”